Mechwarrior 3 Demo

[Rita Seliba]

Weare thrilled to share an exclusive first-look teaser trailer for MechWarrior 5: Clans revealed at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco! This teaser provides an exciting glimpse into the world of Clan Smoke Jaguar and the thrilling future of the MechWarrior franchise.

Attendees at GDC were treated to an immersive hands-off demo, experiencing next-level cinematics that signify a true evolution for the MechWarrior series. Additionally, we are proud to introduce innovative features such as the Battlegrid and Command Wheel functionalities, designed to elevate gameplay to new heights.

Below, you'll find links to insightful reviews from those fortunate enough to experience the demo firsthand. These reviews include B-Roll footage that showcases more of what awaits you in MechWarrior 5: Clans. So, gear up and prepare for an unparalleled MechWarrior experience!

The Catalyst Agents, also summarily known as the Catalyst Demo Team, are freelancer or volunteer BattleTech demo agents and promoters working under the aegis of Catalyst Game Labs (CGL).

The group as such was set up by FanPro as the FanPro Commandos shortly after FanPro had acquired the full license for what was then "Classic BattleTech". In the post-FanPro era, after CGL took over the BattleTech license, the organization was continued, but renamed to Catalyst Commandos and later Catalyst Agents. Aside from the name change it remained the same organization, also retaining the numbering system.

The FanPro Commandos had a webzine called Commando Quarterly that featured largely in-character content in a similar fashion to the BattleTechnology magazine of old, including "Worldbook" articles, in-character ads and communication bulletins, short stories and fiction, essays, and scenarios. Later issues also included Shadowrun content.

From 2002 through 2008 the demo team hosted a number of World Wide Events (WWEs) where fans could partake in scenarios and, through gameplay, determine the canonical outcome of the situation within the BattleTech universe (in most cases; not all events had an impact on canon). Typically, a given scenario would be played out across numerous places under the aegis of a demo agent, and from the average results it was then determined which side had won the engagement in BattleTech canon. After 2008 this stopped, until the Catalyst Demo Team resumed the Worldwide Events in 2017.

Despite the overlap between World Wide Events and (other) Canon Events, not all World Wide Events were Canon Events and vice versa. Several Canon Events were played out at large game fairs instead of WWEs; they are sometimes referred to as "Gen Con Events".

The Martial Olympiad worldwide events were more of a player vs. player tournament than a scenario. Each Martial Olympiad had three rounds, each a unique scenario. Each Commando (demo agent) would tabulate scores for each player, individually, and then submit those. For the 2002 event the results were then posted publicly on the Classic BattleTech website (classicbattletech.com, now defunct). The winner made it into Field Manual: Updates. Further Martial Olympiads were held in 2003 and 2004, but the results were not covered in a product.

The Battle of Monte Diablo event was run on 2 March 2002 as the inaugural FanPro Commando Worldwide Event. It focused on a nonpivotal battle during the FedCom Civil War, the Battle of Monte Diablo, because FanPro did not want to have an unexpected scenario outcome affect the predetermined storyline.

Trial of Retribution was originally scheduled to be run on 1 February 2003, the day that the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated. The scenario features a space battle (the attack against a Clan Ghost Bear Leviathan-class WarShip under still construction), and Scott "Clutch" Taylor postponed it because he did not want the Commandos to be running games featuring exploding spaceships just hours after the Columbia disaster. The event was rescheduled for 8 February 2003.

The Lawyers, Guns, & Money scenario was run on May 24, 2003. It featured infighting among mercenary units on Epsilon Eridani over the discovery of a lostech treasure. Like the 2002 event, it was an isolated event largely irrelevant to the larger storyline, so that the outcome could be canonized with no problems.

Kings & Pawns was run on November 20, 2004. This was the endgame battle for the chaotic situation on Hall that had been developed on the sidelines over several sourcebooks, again a side conflict with no impact on the larger storyline.

Black Ghosts, White Death was a Worldwide Event held in March of 2007. On the world of Northwind, the infamous Northwind Highlanders regiments have been sidelined by a blockade, their fate unknown. Now, Colonel Loren Jaffray, leading an ad hoc unit, including the last remnants of the Black Watch, are attempting to free those regiments. Yet the Word of Blake will not take interference lightly and have dispatched a hunter killer unit of their most elite Manei Domini: the Opacus Venatori.

Operation Higashikuni was a Canon Event played at Gen Con 2007. The battles of Operation Higashikuni featured the mercenary coalition assembled by Chandrasekhar Kurita on Arcturus under surprise attack from the Word of Blake's 40th Shadow Division, with the Blakists trying to kill Kurita or reclaim the journal of Victoria Parrdeau that he had acquired, in an attempt to keep him from discovering sensitive information (such as the location of their secret "Ruins of Gabriel" shipyard). This dovetailed into the Canon Event to be played out at Gen Con 2008 (Operation Kabutomushi), which featured the attack by Chandrasekhar Kurita's coalition on the Ruins of Gabriel.

The Operation Higashikuni event for Gen Con 2007 was initially announced under the name Operation: Angel Requiem,[1] which was to be paired in October 2007 with a follow on event called Vengeance Gambit II. Vengeance Gambit II was however delayed until Gen Con 2008, and ultimately renamed Operation Kabutomushi.[2]

Operation Kabutomushi, the 2008 Gen Con Canon Event covering the eponymous Operation Kabutomushi, was the attack by Kurita's coalition forces against the Ruins of Gabriel in the Odessa system, a naval battle between WarShip fleets. It unexpectedly ended with a Word of Blake victory, crushing Chandrasekhar Kurita's forces in their first battle after having been given a slew of sourcebook fiction and BattleCorps stories building them up as an elite anti-Blakist strike force. Canonizing this defeat was said to have upset the timeline as it had been plotted out by the developers, and necessitated some changes. A subsequent second attack was written as having been successful, bringing the storyline back on track with only relatively minor changes. It would still be the last such event for years to come.

Scorched Earth was a 2017 Worldwide Event created and run by the Catalyst Demo Team between the end of Origins games show that year and the first Monday of September (Labor Day in America) to bring back the Worldwide Events. It was explicitly noted, however, that the Demo Team had created this event with no endorsement from CGL and that it thus did not fulfill the criteria for a canonical event.

The scenario recreated the attack of Clan Wolf against the Free Rasalhague Republic planet of New Oslo during the Clan Invasion of 3050. It was somewhat broader in scope than previous events, including tabletop scenarios for classic boardgame BattleTech as well as Alpha Strike, and ready-to-run roleplaying scenarios for A Time of War.

Dig, Defend, or Die was the 2018 World Wide Event created by the Catalyst Demo Team and the second since the resumption of these events. Again played out from the end of Origins to Labor Day, it was the first to be considered canon since Operation Kabutomushi at Gen Con 2008.

The conflict was a late Jihad/early Dark Age Era event on the world of Stotzing in the former Free Worlds League, where the Green Ghosts pirates threaten the vulnerable world and the First Marik Protectors arrive to fight off the marauders.

After the event concluded, CGL released two related products on 10 September 2018: Spotlight On: First Marik Protectors and Touring the Stars: Stotzing. The scenario PDF and the accompanying MapPack consisting of four new maps were also offered for free download, and all four products were made available as a package deal.

Set in the late Dark Age Era, a lost world is disclosed as being the place where survivors of the SLDF's lost 295th BattleMech Division made landfall. ComStar had discovered the site a century earlier but kept it secret. However, by 3150 two mercenary units would race to this world to recover Star League era BattleMechs.

And Hell Followed With Him was the 2020 Worldwide Event run by Catalyst Demo Teams, announced in late May 2020, and played mostly online over the following months due to the cancellation of Origins and other in-person events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The materials and results for this event have not been subsequently formally published, and as of this writing it was not declared canonical.

At the Cost of Bootlaces was the 2023 Worldwide Event run by Catalyst Demo Teams, comprising of narrative based scenarios with the Capellan Confederation facing off against the IlClan, during the IlClan Era. The materials and results for this event have not been subsequently formally published, and as of this writing it was not declared canonical.

They really don't make space combat games like Solar Warden anymore. Come to think of it, they never made them like this, unless you count the wonky X-Com Interceptor. Currently in its last week of crowdfunding via Kickstarter, Solar Warden is a strange but exciting blend of X-Com style Geoscape management, real-time fleet command and action space combat with the promise of some Descent-inspired encounters in the full game. You can (and should) try an early demo build right here and now.

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